NH8S – Swains Island Final Roundup

The NH8S dxpedition is QRT. I did pretty good for not trying very hard. I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad but it is pretty easy to work the Pacific from the west coast. Of course I lose out when the expedition is in the other direction.

I needed Swains on 10, 30 and 160 meters and managed to work them on those bands. I had to work pretty good on 30 meters because I was trying to get them right at the beginning. Also, with a 200 watt limit and just a vertical it is a little harder, too. On 10 meters I have a Moxon I built and it works really well so I managed to easily work them on CW and phone. After that it was mostly a matter of waiting until they started on 160 meters.

The first morning they were on 160 I couldn’t copy them well enough to even try to work them. Sometimes you could catch their call but you really could not tell who they came back to. The second morning I was listening around the greyline and for about five minutes they popped out of the noise long enough for me to work them.

So success this time but now I’ll have to see if I can work some of the upcoming expeditions, you just never know what propagation is going to be like.